


Mechanically Inclined

by rebelliousrose



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen, Helo ShAgathon, Imprisonment, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 20:46:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4680911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelliousrose/pseuds/rebelliousrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somebody had to do something, although why it always seemed to have to be someone in a Chief’s uniform was beyond him. Need someone to go into a punctured water tank venting out into space? Get a knuckledragger. Looking for someone to crash into a planet? Hate to miss that. But this was the most frakking dangerous thing yet. Machines, he could fix, but people?</p>
<p>Prompt: Would like to see friendship between all three but something a little smutty. :) I don't mind where in the timeline it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mechanically Inclined

**Author's Note:**

  * For [carpenyx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carpenyx/gifts).



Somebody had to do something, although why it always seemed to have to be someone in a Chief’s uniform was beyond him. Need someone to go into a punctured water tank venting out into space? Get a knuckledragger. Looking for someone to crash into a planet? Hate to miss that. But this was the most frakking dangerous thing yet. Machines, he could fix, but people? Cylons count as machines, right? Give him a leg up, at least. He could understand a machine. Maybe even understand this machine. After all, he’d been in love with it. A different version of the software, at least. Version 1.8, maybe. Or something like that, something not really real. 

The cell wasn’t guarded at night anymore, and only occasionally during the day. Sharon just lay there, unmoving, staring at the ceiling, rising to mechanically eat and take care of the most personal needs. Always thin, she was gaunt now, her once-glossy hair lank and greasy. Did Cylons use motor oil for moisturizer? 

Sneaking in to see her wasn’t the best idea, probably, but what the frak; he hadn’t been arrested, poisoned, imprisoned, the subject of a tribunal, or punched in the face in a while now, and he figured he was pretty much due. Life on the Galactica had involved a decent amount of pain before the attacks, and not a lot had changed since, unless you counted the smell getting worse. 

The bay was dark, the cell faintly illuminated. The Cylon never had full darkness. She wasn’t allowed to be unobserved, or hadn’t been until New Caprica. So many people had gone down to the surface that there really wasn’t anyone left to guard her, or to even cause her to need a guard. The only people she was dangerous to anymore were herself- and Helo. 

Poor sad bastard, that Helo. He was why the Chief was here, a wreck in need of repairs. Maybe Starbuck could have helped, but she was off on New Cap, running around in the sunshine and playing with her newest toy, musclebound Anders. And Helo, her best friend, really, Starbuck’s only friend, since she was such a pain in the ass to everyone, was sleepwalking through everything in such a fog of pain it was a wonder he wasn’t crazier than President Baltar. Maybe he was, and nobody had noticed yet, but at least Helo wasn’t talking to himself in the head and dragging himself down the hall with his own clothing. 

He sneaked closer to the cell, if trotting along in a neon orange jumpsuit with a toolbox could be called sneaking. Sharon lay there immobile, and he picked up the phone. Maybe she would respond. She had before, after they built the Blackbird, and he could use the help. Any response from her would give the LT hope, but she ignored the poor guy, freezing him worse than Adama had ever iced anyone. He stared at her. 

“Pick up the phone, Sharon. I know you can hear me.” 

Nothing. He shook his head. So far, he wasn’t in court martial or brig territory, but that was about to change. He slapped his hand against the glass, hard enough to shake it, and the Cylon flinched. “Come on, Sharon. You’re being a jerk, and you know it.” She rolled over and presented her back to him, and he made his decision. “Have it your way. I’m coming in.” 

He made short work of the lock. It wasn’t for nothing that he read technical manuals on everything on Galactica for fun. The old girl had few systems that he didn’t understand at least some of. Pity women couldn’t come with manuals like ships. Save everyone a lot of trouble. 

He approached the bunk. Some people were afraid of Cylons, but he had no fear of this one. The Eights had hurt him enough, he figured. Hurt Helo enough, too. And Adama. For all he knew, Doctor…President Baltar was hallucinating Eights and taking advice from the visions. Which might actually be an improvement in policy, now that he thought about it. 

Sharon was curled around herself, around the flat belly that had been round, and held the child whose ashes the Chief had helped Helo space. He’d held Helo too, gripping his shoulder when it looked like the LT was going out the Raptor door with his daughter. 

The Chief sat down, his back against the bunk. “I know you can hear me, Sharon.” Her name sounded odd on his tongue, the name the same but the person totally different. If you called a machine a person. “If I’m getting court-martialled for breaking in here, the least you could do is pretend to listen. Or look at me.” 

She remained impassive. With a sigh he pressed on. “Or look at the LT. Or talk to him, or gods, just give him something. He’s frakked up over Hera too. If you were going to abandon him, you should have done it on Caprica, where he was at least expecting it. Are all the Eights selfish, or is it just you and Sharon?” Something was weird with that last sentence, and he took a moment to parse it out and decide he didn’t mind. “Sharon was like a little kid with a broken toy before she shot Adama. It was like she didn’t understand that people could be hurt with words, or no words at all. All she could see was what she wanted, and she couldn’t see any farther than that. Selfish.” 

He stared at the wall, remembering when he and the LT had sat in the brig on Pegasus, waiting to die, and what Helo had told him. “He can’t let you go. He can’t watch you fade, or let you push him away. He has to keep trying, because to him, you’re all that he has left. He gave up most of his life for you, Sharon. People hate him. They want him to die, just because Hera existed. Because you exist. They call him a traitor, a dupe, a Cylon-lover. And he doesn’t care. He’ll take anything they throw at him to be in the world you’re in, and it’s killing him. He can’t do it by himself. He shouldn’t have to.” 

When she didn’t move, or answer, the Chief’s patience snapped. Lunging to his feet, he grabbed for her shoulders and shook her hard, her body flopping like a doll. “He won’t eat!” Chief roared. “Have you looked at him? At all? Or are you so angry and so selfish that you don’t care?” He yanked her to her feet and locked his fingers around her jaw, forcing her face toward him. 

“He would have died for you. He almost did. Are you going to finish what those frakkers started? Wallow in here and pretend that you’re the only one who lost someone you loved? Every single person in this Fleet lost someone. Some of us lost everyone! And we can’t get them back. We can’t replace them from files or backups. They’re gone, forever. And I understand that Hera’s gone and you love her. I get that. But you have to remember that so does Helo. And without you, he’s all alone.” 

Tears trickled from Sharon’s eyes. “How can you say you understand?” Her voice was rusty from disuse. She turned her face to the wall and hung limp in his grip. 

“Because I do.” The Cylon shook her head in denial. “No, I really do. Cally’s pregnant. I’m going to be a father. There’s a new person depending on me to love them and take care of them and Sharon, it frakkin’ scares me to death, because now I have someone to lose. And so do you.” 

He dropped her on the cot in a sprawl of skinny arms and legs. Her eyes were on him, wary and watchful. Her thin cheeks bore the imprint of his fingers. “My Sharon was a lot of things, but she was never a coward. So stop hiding. Stop whining. Grow up. Or rot and die in here, and one of these days, I’ll be dumping the LT out of a Raptor door into space too.” 

Picking up his toolbox, the Chief turned to go. He’d given it his best shot, all he had, really, and though Helo wouldn’t thank him for it, he’d had to try. Some things were bigger than words, he guessed. Personally, he’dve turned her over his knee months ago, but the LT would sooner strangle a puppy than raise his hand to a woman. He never had figured out how Helo managed to shoot her on Caprica…

“Wait.” He jumped as her hand covered the door. Cylons moved fast when they wanted to. “Wait,” she repeated, tone gaining in strength and authority with each word. Her eyes were dry, and her face iron hard. “Are you lying to me?” 

“You have got to be frakking kidding me. You think I’d give up rack time, break into the most secure area on Galactica, and risk court-martial for talking to you unsupervised for what? Payback? My Sharon died. What’s left to be mad at?”

“I want to see him. Now.” She shifted her grip to his wrist. 

Chief pulled against her hand. “I’ll get him for you. He’s sleeping. Give me a minute or two to lock the door back up and I’ll go.” 

“Take me to Helo.” Her eyes burned with that dark Cylon intensity that usually meant some sort of disaster for him in short order, and he sighed. Frak, he was done for anyway. The cameras and mikes had picked up every moment of his unauthorized visit, and if he was going to get the brig, he might as well see it through. Damn Cylons couldn’t just kill you straight up. They had to torture you first. 

Chief shouldered open the hatch to the pilots’ quarters. The walk there had been a little more exciting than he liked, especially considering he had an impatient Cylon prisoner by the elbow. Luckily, they hadn’t passed anyone but Dualla, and everyone on Galactica knew Dee could and would keep a secret. The big door swung open, and Chief stuck his head in, squinting through the dim half lights to Helo’s rack. The LT was lying there, one arm under his head, the other loosely hooked in his waistband. 

He was so thin now, he looked like the Helo that Chief had known right out of flight school, gawky and unfinished looking, rawboned and rough-edged, all planes and angles. Even after he and Sharon had come from Caprica with Starbuck, Helo still hadn’t been gaunt like this, and he’d eaten with good will since. Until Hera died, and then the man who’d been the first to inhale his rations and scrounge other people for more was picking at his food and giving away his rolls…

Helo noticed the Chief, and his eyes became alert in the gloom. His muscles tensed, as if he was going to swing his legs off the rack and rise, but then he relaxed again. Chief waved tentatively, and then felt his shoulder bounce off the side of the hatch as Sharon shoved him aside and stepped over the doorframe. She stopped just inside the door, and just looked at Helo, and he at her. 

The LT’s green eyes were the only thing that moved as the Cylon stepped slowly toward his rack, as they stared into each other’s faces. Sharon stopped beside the bunk, and then slowly sank to her knees, still looking straight at the LT. The Chief wondered for an insane moment if Helo had died from shock, since he didn’t seem to even have breathed since Sharon stepped into the room, but then Helo closed his eyes. The flesh of his face went tight, and his jaw worked. His chest heaved once, and Sharon rested her head on the mattress, her forehead touching his side. 

Helo’s free hand lifted, hesitated, then rested on her head, and Sharon looked up through tear-filled eyes. Her lips trembled, but Helo put a finger to them and shook his head, cupping her cheek. Sharon covered his hand with hers and they did that eye-locking thing again. The Chief decided to bow out while he still could, since being court-martialled for watching two people staring at each other and breathing wasn’t really his thing. Helo could return the Cylon to her cell, since it was still unlocked. He guessed things were okay now, with the LT and the toaster, although if it were him, he’dve been talking, saying things like how sorry he was and how he loved her and how…well, whatever. They seemed to be doing fine by themselves, and he’d done his part. He smiled a little to himself. Maybe a little people fixing was something he could do after all. Or was it toaster repair?


End file.
